With the release of the NCAA Graduation Success Rate on Thursday, we at Football Four decided to see what a top 25 would look like if academic success, not football success, was the standard of achievement for the Football Bowl Subdivision. But then we thought, this is a football site. How can we ignore the football aspect?

Instead, we decided to rank the top 25 FBS programs in the GSR with their on-field football success weighted just as heavily. To do this, we put the top 25 FBS programs in order of GSR, and then we examined their winning percentage during the GSR evaluation period. In this case, that means each team's record from fall 2006 through fall 2011.

The GSR is intended to be a more reality-based measure than the Federal Graduation Rate. It is calculated based on the percentage of players who enter a program and graduate within six years. Unlike the Federal graduation rate calculation, the GSR does not penalize schools for losing players in good academic standing to transfer, and it credits the school for graduating those who transfer into their programs.

Our methodology gave a value of 1-25 for each school's place in Graduation Success Rate, with Rice's FBS-best 96% rate getting a 1. We also gave a value of 1-25 for each GSR top 25 school's winning percentage from 2006-2011. In that category, Boise State earned a 1 with a winning percentage of .924. The Broncos were the only team with a winning percentage higher than its GSR (and their GSR was 91%, good for seventh-place in the top 25).

Each team's place in the two categories – GSR and winning percentage – were summed to give them a final point total. For example, in Boise State's case, the seventh-place finish in GSR and first-place finish in winning percentage equaled eight points, the best overall total (lowest points wins).

The complete top 25:

Place

Team

GSR

Win Pct.

Points

1

Boise State

.91

.924

8

2

Boston College

.94

.620

9

3 (tie)

Air Force

.93

.577

13

3 (tie)

TCU

.85

.846

13

5

Notre Dame

.94

.553

14

6

Rutgers

.85

.636

16

7

Stanford

.93

.547

17

8

Rice

.96

.405

20

9 (tie)

Navy

.84

.628

21

9 (tie)

Northern Illinois

.85

.564

21

11

Georgia

.82

.675

22

12

Wake Forest

.86

.545

23

13

Miami (Fla.)

.86

.513

24

14

West Virginia

.80

.756

26

15

Central Florida

.83

.558

28

16

Army

.89

.329

29

17

Iowa

.81

.615

30

18

Duke

.92

.222

32

19

UCLA

.82

.442

35

20

Vanderbilt

.82

.351

38

21

Utah State

.84

.284

39

22

Temple

.79

.487

40

23

Loiusiana Tech

.79

.440

42

24

Tulane

.82

.260

43

25

Colorado State

.79

.315

47

***

Texas Tech's "fortune favours the bold" hype video is pretty cool

***

Lots of great reading from the USA TODAY Sports college football staff today:

- Speaking of coaches, Greg Bishop of The New York Times writes a package on how Urban Meyer built his staff at Ohio State and examines the one-time strangers who have helped the Buckeyes to the nation's longest winning streak.

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No. 18 Louisville (6-1, 2-1) at USF (2-4, 2-0), 12 p.m. ET, ESPN2: As Louisville looks to bounce back from its first loss of the season, USF has won its first two AAC games since starting 0-4. Somehow the Bulls are in the conference race and this game has some meaning.
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No. 15 Fresno State (6-0, 3-0) at San Diego State (3-3, 2-0), 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2: The two teams leading the MWC's West Division square off, with the Aztecs having won three in a row after starting 0-3. Fresno looks to keep its BCS bowl hopes alive.
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Boise State (5-2) at BYU (5-2), 8 p.m. ET Friday, ESPN: BYU has beaten four strong teams in a row after starting 1-2, while Boise will try to find its footing without quarterback Joe Southwick, who broke his ankle.
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Texas (4-2, 3-0) at TCU (3-4, 1-3), 7:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1: The Longhorns have eased the pressure on Mack Brown by winning their first three conference games, their last being the dominant win over Oklahoma. They come up against a TCU team that has only lost to teams currently ranked.
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Penn State (4-2, 1-1) at No. 4 Ohio State (7-0, 3-0), 8 p.m. ET, ABC: Penn State hasn't played since the intense 4OT win against Michigan, while the Buckeyes have ground out wins in their first three conference games. Braxton Miller looked stellar last week in the win against Iowa.
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No. 8 Stanford (6-1, 4-1) at Oregon State (6-1, 4-0), 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN: Stanford got back into the top 10 a week after losing with all of last weekend's chaos. Meanwhile, Oregon State hasn't lost since the embarrassing loss to FCS Eastern Washington in Week 1. Are the Beavers a legit Pac-12 contender?
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No. 10 Texas Tech (7-0, 4-0) at No. 17 Oklahoma (6-1, 3-1), 3:30 p.m. ET, FOX: Kliff Kingsbury and the Red Raiders get their first real test, traveling to Norman to take on another major contender in the deep Big 12. This game kicks off the matchups between the conference's four ranked teams.
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No. 20 South Carolina (5-2, 3-2) at No. 5 Missouri (7-0, 3-0), 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: After beating Georgia and Florida, Missouri can claim the the tiebreaker over the SEC East's final big dog. The Gamecocks look to bounce back from last week's disappointing loss to Tennessee and stay in the division race.
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No. 12 UCLA (5-1, 2-1) at No. 2 Oregon (7-0, 4-0), 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: After losing its first game last week at Stanford, UCLA heads north again to give Oregon a run for its money. Brett Hundley will need to have a much better outing in Eugene than he did last week if the Bruins hope to have a chance.
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